I'm slowly emerging from my latest dark age having sold all my sets about 5 years ago (including many of the classics). The money went to more important things at the time and I had no room to justify my collection size.

Now that my children have started to grow up I have started taking notice of the new castle sets ( and upcoming LOTR sets) and I'm loving what I see. Having owned many of the classics- blacksmiths shop, guarded inn, black falcons fortress to name a few- I think that putting nostalgia aside the newer sets are on a par if not better than the 'golden era'.

I left lego at a time of jellybean knights, skeltons and trolls and now I've come back there's lego farm animals, great weapons new helmets, the return of the bow and pitchfork, sets like the medieval village and royal joust, medieval life sets like the mill and blacksmith. I guess the only drawback is for those who collected a lot of old grey bricks before the colour change.

my 2 septims worth...........I for one think that TLG have listened to what the AFOLs have asked for. I'm excited!!

I'd sure like to think in the years to come we will have a true "golden era" of Castle. Being far too young to experience the first one, (born in '96, the early Castle set I ever got was KKI or early KKII, I was more of a Town fan when I was a kid though) I would love to have not only that title attributed to a period of time, but also just to HAVE that period of time where awesome sets with fantastic pieces come out left and right.

Kingdoms was obviously a step in the right direction, and while LOTR is going to focus most on the action side of things, I think we can expect a wide variety of new weapons and helmets.

I'm younger than OverLoad, so I didn't experience the "Golden Age" either, but I can certainly say that things in the Lego Castle world have been shaping up, beginning with the last bit of Fantasy Era. It seems that Kindoms has drawn in or recaptured dozens of fans of castle, so I'd say that is proof of a new "Golden Age".

I must say when I started getting into Legos (around the Jelly bean knight era) I wished for some cool medieval styled castle theme and KK II and Castle didn't really answer that but when Kingdoms came out it felt like a return of the golden era of classic castle and is now my favorite castle theme. Sadly Lego discontinued it after only two waves but we can only hope for some more Kingdoms like sets after LotR ends. LotR also has some great buildings that if I had the money I'd buy them too but it just isn't the classic yellow castle theme.~KnightMan~

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Being an Golden era child and having many of the great sets from the eighties, I find many of these sets relesed 1996-2005 quite bad. Castle Fantasy era is pretty good but I don`t like the fantasy stuff much so that wasn`t my thing. Kingdoms was great and pretty close to the old sets. Hopefuly TLG will continue the trend after LOTR gets started. And i hope TLG would again make castle builder sets, peasent sets with wall building pieces, similars sets like 6041 Armor Shop, 6067 Guarded Inn, 6061 Siege Tower, 6040 Blacksmith Shop etc

I was a major fan of the classic castle of the 80's and 90's and I think Lego has exceeded all expectations for their castle lines since the Crownies came out. They haven't disappointed me any. And nostalgia aside, these sets from Crownies on are just as good if not better than the old classic sets.

I am also a long time collector and fan of the classics. If I take out the emotion and nostalgia, and judge the sets based solely on design and build techniques, the sets starting in 2007 with the fantasy era are simply better designed than the classic sets. I feel this is a golden age for castle and LEGO in general.

in 2007 things definitely started looking up for Castle(of course after KK2 the fright nights would have been looking up) in my opinion 07-09 were the best years for castle, the number of knights/generals was appropriate for the number of foot soldiers(unlike some themes where it was easier to collect a army of kings or generals)plus we got undead, dwarfs, and my favorite, orks and don't forget the MMV, which I believe is the first civilian set since before KK1.

Fantasy Era and Kingdoms were both great, great fig designs and useful parts all around. I'm not sure if I regret not getting more (I have hardly any Fantasy Era stuff at all and only a few of the smaller Kingdoms sets) but I think they're great, especially since I grew up with KK I and II too. KK I was still somewhat okay but II? Maaaan, it's one of the reasons I quit for a while.

I do think that emerging during the castle line we have a new golden age, it coincides with the better designed city based stuff as well. LEGO looked back at its roots, but did not forget the newer pieces that make for a lot of detail.